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Thursday, May 17, 2012

To
be honest I really don't remember a lot of the details of the plot of
Nexus. Written by Mike Baron and drawn (mostly) by Steve Rude,
it was one of the earliest of the Direct Market books, originally
published by Capitol in black and white and then quickly moving to
First Publications and full color. I tapped into Nexus early,
with the black and white issues (picked up at Eide's on one of my
earliest ventures into the city to find a comics shop, if memory
serves).

To
summarize; Horatio Hellpop, also known as Nexus, has terrible dreams
about mass murderers, dreams that he is compelled to act upon.
Wielding tremendous “fusion casting” powers Nexus tracks these
genocidal villains across the universe and kills them. He is
essentially an assassin, and though his victims are all guilty of
horrendous crimes (sort of like Dexter with superpowers), the tragedy
of Nexus is that with each victim he takes a step closer to being a
mass murderer himself.

I
still think of it as one of my favorite books from that time, but
recently, in preparation for writing this post, I flipped through a
lot of the early issues and the rest of the run and was surprised at
how little of it looked familiar. The characters were all well-known
to me and as I browsed most of their primary relationships came back.
But the stories, the specifics of the ongoing plot remained vague.

While
the basic idea of Nexus killing killers provides a structure for the
stories, that's not really what the book was about. It was a story
about relationships, religion, politics, and societal pressures. It
was about free will and moral ambiguity. Though the basic premise of
the series was dark, the book was also a tremendous amount of fun. In
this way, unlike so many comics that focus on dark themes, Nexus
embraced the whole spectrum of life. The joy and love and friendship
and laughter that suffused every issue showed the human spirit and
reminded us of what we stood to lose when evil prevails.

Nexus
himself could be a bit of a downer. He did carry a terrible burden
after all, and feared allowing himself to genuinely care. Over the
course of the series the amazing supporting cast humanized him,
bringing out of his self-imposed emotional exile to join life more
fully. Sundra Peale was the love interest, but she was so much more
than that. Sundra had a rich life outside of her relationship with
Horatio, and of the two was the more self aware. She was independent
and confident and self-reliant. Horatio's best friend Dave was
centered and calm. Dave's son Fred, who went by the warrior name of
Judah Maccabee, was loud, brash and hedonistic. There were many, many
more. Baron's skill at presenting richly imagined and thoroughly
complex characters cannot be overstated.

And
then there's the art. I'm just going to say that Steve Rude ranks
among my all time favorite artists. His influences are diverse;
comics artists Jack Kirby, Alex Toth and Russ Manning are the most
obvious, but artists such as Andrew Loomis and Norman Rockwell are
also evident. But Rude takes these influences and makes them his own.
When I first saw Nexus I didn't really put any of this together. The
sheer power of his graphic design was enough.

I love the clean lines.
His ability to convey emotion through body language and facial
expressions is unparallelled. There is a lithe sense of motion in
every action, even when characters are at rest. His use of solid
black is fearless. Solid black foregrounds are butted directly
against solid black midgrounds and backgrounds, and due to his
composition it never flattens out.

His color work is pretty awesome as well.

Rude's
art has always been something I have aspired to. I think he was a
more direct influence on my collaborator Fred, at least in terms of
visual world-building, than on me. Nexus subtly influenced our
development of the world of Grey Legacy. We were telling a
very different type of story, but the pieces are there. The mix of
the serious with the absurd certainly was there (though Douglas Adams
was responsible for that aesthetic for us as well). Some of our alien
species are, well... cartoony. This was a conscious decision on our
part. I remember, during one of our early convention appearances
someone looking at our art and really taking us to task for this. He
just couldn't wrap his head around our more “realistic” looking
characters existing in the same world as Lesterfarr and Bilmar. The
contrast really bothered him, but it was exactly the look we wanted.

At least some of that came from Rude. The various alien inhabitants
of Ylum (Nexus' world, pronounced Eye-Lum) were a mix of the very
real and the slightly absurd. The drawings of Dr. Seuss were a huge
influence on Rude's designs. It wasn't just background characters
either, but many of the central cast. Dave, Judah, Mezz, Tyrone...
all of these had an air of whimsy in their design. But that whimsy
never undermined the seriousness of their characterization.

I'm pretty sure I haven't done justice to this. Nexus
is a series I would love to turn more people onto, but these days
it's really difficult to do so. The books are simply not readily
available for new readers. The whole series is being collected into
beautiful hardcover editions, but at fifty bucks a pop they are only
for people who are already fans of the series. A trade paperback
edition of the first few issues has been released, but the color
issues were reproduced in black and white, and the strength of Rude's
design was marred by the addition of unnecessary gray tones. Dark
Horse Comics has released the last few Nexus stories over the
years, including a brand new one scheduled to appear in Dark Horse
Presents soon. Dark Horse has been releasing great color omnibus
editions of many of the great books of the 80's at reasonable prices.
Come on, let's see a Nexus Omnibus. Unless the rights are tied up
elsewhere I can't see any reason not to. I would sell the Hell out of
that at Phantom of the Attic.

Monday, May 14, 2012

So
I've been asked why everything I've been talking about or reviewing
in this series are books from the early 80's. It's a valid question.
I don't really think of myself as one of those old guys who seem to
believe that “everything was better in my day!” I don't really
believe that. I've tried to spend my life not being stuck in the
past, believing that my glory days are behind me. I've always been
critical of those people who get into music in high school and thirty
years later are still only listening to those same bands. Not that I
don't do some of that, as anyone who has had to listen to Alice
Cooper, or KISS or David Bowie around me will attest to. But in the
thirty-plus years since I first discovered those bands I have
maintained a hunger for new music, and continually explore stuff
that's new to me, whether it's a brand new band that catches my ear,
or artists from the past that I simply missed out on or wasn't old
enough, or wasn't even born yet to have ever heard.

The
same is true of comics. Thanks to reprint editions of old comics I'm
always reading something I missed before. Thanks to working at a
comics shop I'm exposed to new books and series every week. I still
love that joy of discovery when I find something new that really
moves me or excites me.

But
that does happen less often than it used to. That's true of music and
comics. Some of it is a simple truth of age. I've read and heard a
lot more stuff now than when I was twenty. I don't think that makes
me jaded. More discriminating, perhaps. It takes a lot more to
impress me, simply because I've seen a lot of really amazing work.

I
think for all of us though, there is a time in our lives when we are
first really discovering our passions, and those things that move us
then become part of our personal DNA. Nothing will ever have quite
the same impact on us again, and we will hold on to our nostalgic
memory of those experiences as a wonderful time in our life.

For
me, at least in terms of comics, that time was the early 80's. I was
in my early 20's and comics may have lost me as a reader if the
explosion of the Direct Market hadn't happened. I was reading X-Men
(though the post-Paul Smith issues were gradually losing my interest
month to month), and Marv Wolfman and George Perez's New Teen Titans.
Frank Miller's Daredevil and the Wolverine mini-series both
enthralled me and had more adult themes and sensibilities than most
comics prior to that. I was reading a lot of Marvel comics at the
time, but was growing disenchanted.

As
I've said elsewhere, I know that many of the new Direct Market comics
I began to discover at that time weren't really much different than
Marvel and DC, conceptually speaking at least. But it felt momentous.
Suddenly it felt like comics could be anything. The titles I've been
discussing here, and those I have yet to write about, reignited my
love of comics as a medium at a time when I may have “outgrown”
them. Were they actually better than what came before? Are they
better than what has come since? In a lot of cases, probably not
(though I would make the case that they are better than a lot of what
came before and after). Regardless of their quality, these were the
books that were formative to me, as a fan, as an artist, as a writer
and storyteller.

What's
great about this hobby is that we all have those moments and those
books that are meaningful. Heart books, as I referred to them when I
introduced this idea. I ignored the entire Image Comics movement of
the early 90's and have no emotional connection to those books or
characters at all. But, I've talked to enough people whose opinion I
respect to know that those books were the same for them that my books
were for me. They are different books, but we share the same kind of
experience. That's the kind of thing that should unite us as fans of
comics.

The
danger is getting tied to that one thing and never moving forward or
discovering something new. I don't want to discourage anyone from
listening to their old, favorite band, but there's great new music
being made. If you loved Spawn in the early 90's, by all means,
reread them and enjoy. But check out the amazing new work coming out
every week. Don't shut yourself off to new experiences, whether it's
something brand new, or an old series you've never heard of before.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

I
found out yesterday that an old friend succumbed to her ongoing
battle with cancer this week. I don't want to go into a lot of detail
about her here in this forum. Most of what I remember and cherish is
personal and private, to me and to her, and I don't want to exploit
that.

And
though I don't want to make this about me, this is really weirding me
out more than a lot of deaths I've experienced. I've been very
blessed not to have lost a lot of very close people. A number of
older family members, usually after a long siege of sickness, usually
cancer. I don't mean to diminish those experiences because every
death is significant. But for most of these it felt as though their
time had come and there was some relief that they weren't suffering
any longer.

That
was true for my friend as well. She has been fighting this battle for
a few years now, and though I have seen pictures of her thin face and
bald head from the chemo, I have't actually seen her in person since
well before she was diagnosed. So, in my head she is still the
vibrant, beautiful twenty-year old I met close to thirty years ago.

We
were friends, we were lovers, we were never actually boyfriend and
girlfriend. We were, as the current term says, complicated. We both
moved on with our lives and stayed in touch through other
relationships, and in her case, marriage. There were never any
regrets or questions about what we had been, or of who we were to
each other. She was my friend, first and foremost and I loved her
dearly.

So
yesterday I played a bunch of music I associate with her, and I cried
and I smiled and I shook my head at some of the dumb, wonderful shit
we did together and wished we had both been better at communicating
more frequently.

So,
here's to you, AJA. Thank you for making my life richer. I'll miss you, pal. I love you.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Marvel
Comics responded to the explosion of the Direct
Market by launching a creator-owned line of comics under the Epic
Comics imprint. The first book they published was Dreadstar by Jim
Starlin. An introductory chapter to this, entitled Metamorphosis
Odyssey, had already been serialized in Epic Illustrated, the Heavy
Metal-like magazine Marvel had been publishing. I had read these, but
quite honestly, Dreadstar just never really clicked for me (though I
read quite a few issues before I realized this).

Their
second book, Coyote by Steve Englehart, really grabbed me.

Englehart
was an established comics writer by this time, having written many
books for both Marvel and DC. His run on Captain America featured the
Secret Empire storyline wherein Cap became so disillusioned with
American politics that he briefly gave up his identity to become
Nomad, the Man Without a Country. This was after witnessing the
suicide of the villainous leader of the Secret Empire. While never
made explicit, it was strongly implied that this man was Richard
Nixon, president of the United States. This story appeared during the
height of the Watergate scandal, and the issue with the suicide
appeared about a month before the real Nixon resigned. Englehart went
on to collaborate with artist Marshall Rogers on Batman, creating a
seminal run that is still influential (collected in the Batman:
Strange Apparitions TP). He left comics to write a The Point Man,
a well-received fantasy/occult novel.

In
various interviews I have read from that time Englehart had no plans
to ever work in comics again, due to ongoing issues with creators
rights. He did create the character of Coyote with Rogers for Eclipse
Publishing, a Direct Market company that offered full ownership of
properties to the creators.

Coyote
was serialized in black and white in Eclipse Magazine, later
collected in color as a trade paperback called I
am Coyote, which is how I first
saw this story. Roger's art Coyote was dark and creepy, layered with
zip-a-tone gray tones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screentone...
for you youngins who don't know what that is). In B&W it looked
great, but reproduced pretty muddy when color was added.

Unfortunately,
the art didn't really capture the spirit of what Englehart wanted
Coyote to be. He was tired of the Batman-like dark avengers of
comics, living in alleys and creeping around gothic rooftops. Coyote
was a creature of the desert southwest, set in Las Vegas. Bright sun,
bright neon and wide open spaces.

When
Englehart was asked to contribute a new comic to Epic, where he would
own his characters and stories, Coyote was the concept he chose.
Rogers was not available at the time (and installments of the original
series had run increasingly late).

Artist
Steve Leialoha came on board with a much lighter style, more iconic
in approach. Coyote himself seemed lighter, in mood as well as
physical mass.

Wraparound cover for issue #1 by Steve Leialoha

Coyote
was the modern incarnation of a god-concept. Sylvester "Sly" Santagelo was
lost in the desert as a baby, found and raised by the Native American
trickster god, Coyote. He was raised with totem animals and spirits
in a world filled with magic. He entered the real world as a young
man, seeing it for the first time. In spite of his upbringing he was
enthralled by our mundane world, seeing the magic in it that most of
don't. He was youthfully arrogant, filled with a sense of his own
power (“Coyote is so sly,” he often said of himself), even when
he screwed up. He was happy-go-lucky, filled with a sense of wonder.
He believed anything was possible and that he had the power to make
happen whatever he wanted. He was overtly sexual. His ongoing affair
with NaTalia and Cassie was one of the first openly
polyamorous, and interracial relationships in comics.

Is
it any wonder he appealed to twenty-one year old Wayne?

Leialoha
left after only two beautiful issues. Issue three was drawn by Butch
Guice. His Coyote was bulky and muscular, looking much more like the
standard superhero comic than what we had seen before, and the style
really didn't work.

The rest of the series was drawn by Chas Truog,
who went on to be the artist for Grant Morrison's awesome Animal Man
series (which featured a story called Coyote Gospel). As much as I love Coyote, and as much as I love Animal Man,
I'm not a fan of Truog's art. I find it serviceable, but fairly
bland.

As
an aside, Truog did a couple of covers for the Alien
Nation: The Public Enemy
mini-series I inked back in the day.

Coyote
ran for sixteen issues, and in terms of plot it was, quite honestly,
a clusterfuck. Englehart seemed to just be throwing whatever he could
think of into the mix and seeing how his character reacted to it.
There were evil scientists and magical threats and aliens from Venus,
all working together as part of an international cabal known as the
Shadow Cabinet. There was a middle eastern hero known as the Djinn,
Israeli spy organizations and cyborg Soviet assassins. There was a man who
had half his brain living in another dimension. It was gloriously
weird and reckless fun and I loved it.

I
have no idea if it was any good or not.

Like
too many series, it ended with no real resolution. I like to think
Sly Santagelo is still wandering around Vegas and the surrounding
desert, getting into trouble and getting laid and not taking any of
it very seriously.

Reading
this series served to turn me onto Native American mythology. I found
a book called The Trickster by Paul Radin that changed the way I
looked at the world and mythology. There was a great book called A
Magic Dwells (from a quote by Hermann Hesse), that detailed the
Navajo emergence myth. Coyote led me to read a lot about the concept
of the Holy Fool and the Puer Aeternis, which tied well into the
Percival Grail stories I was discovering at the time. These kinds of
connections happened more and more often with the things I read and
the stuff I was interested in, one leading fairly seamlessly into
another. That's still true.

I'm
not as naïve as I was then, nor quite so youthfully arrogant. I
still see our mundane world through eyes of magic (at least I try
to). Sometimes I'm pretty sure at least half my brain lives in
another dimension. I fully believe the world is gloriously weird and
fun. I try to convey those ideas in whatever I do. Talking about Comics is a great way of tricking people into learning about something else.